Battle Royale

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I said here recently said that I spent one weekend in 1977 helping Gabe Kaplan out at a taping of The Battle of the Network Stars. I need to correct/clarify that.

ABC broadcast the first Battle of the Network Stars on November 13, 1976. It pitted teams from all three networks against one another in athletic events and ABC won two ways. Its team won the competition and the network had a special that got huge ratings and cried out for sequels. Quickly, they set up a rematch with the same team captains and some of the same team members.

The second one — the one I witnessed — aired on February 28, 1977 and it was actually called The Challenge of the Network Stars. Thereafter, they called them Battle of the Network Stars III, Battle of the Network Stars IV, etc., and retroactively referred to the one for which I was present as Battle of the Network Stars II. The teams were…

ABC Team: Gabe Kaplan (Team Captain), Levar Burton, Darleen Carr, Richard Hatch, Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs, Ron Howard, Hal Linden, Kristy McNichol, Penny Marshall, Jaclyn Smith

CBS Team: Telly Savalas (Team Captain), Sonny Bono, Kevin Dobson, Mike Farrell, David Groh, Linda Lavin, Lee Meriwether, Rob Reiner, Loretta Swit, Marcia Wallace

NBC Team: Robert Conrad (Team Captain), Elizabeth Allen, Lynda Day George, Carl Franklin, Karen Grassle, Dan Haggerty, Art Hindle, Kurt Russell, Jane Seymour, W.K. Stratton

I do not know who one or two of those people are and didn't then. A couple of them weren't sure at the time, either. For a while, I was sitting on the ABC bench and I had a clipboard with pages listing all the competitors and the schedule of events. Various stars were coming up to me, pointing to other competitors and asking, "What show is he [or she] on?"

It was all shot at Pepperdine University — half on Saturday and half on Sunday. One online reference says the hosts were Howard Cosell, Bruce Jenner and O.J. Simpson but I only recall seeing Mr. Cosell on the premises.

Gabe Kaplan introduced me to him. I shook the hand of the man they called with great sarcasm, Humble Howard and my gaze fixed on a toupee that wouldn't have fooled Quincy Magoo during a total eclipse. Gabe looked on as Cosell held onto my mitt with both hands and shook it over and over and told me, "Young man, I envy you this moment. It is rare that a pedestrian individual such as yourself has the opportunity to bask in the aura of true greatness. In years to come, not a day will go by that you will not boast of having met the famous Howard Cosell. Your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren…they will all hear that you shook the hand of this nation's intellectual conscience."

I turned to Gabe and said, "You're right. He is an asshole."

Gabe laughed hysterically. A few other folks within earshot laughed. And Howard, to his credit, managed a chuckle.

I don't know why I said that. Well, I do know: to get the laugh. But that kind of remark usually isn't my style. Something about Mr. Cosell's little self-parody just brought it out in me.

An hour or so later, I was standing off in an area from which the general public was excluded, trying to act casual and watch something without appearing to be watching it. It was the sight of Jane Seymour in a clingy, wet nylon swim suit trying to dry her extremely-long hair. She was, then as now, a woman of stunning beauty.

In my quest to not look like I was ogling Ms. Seymour when I in fact was, I noticed Howard Cosell standing near me, trying to pretend he wasn't staring at her, too. It had already dawned on me that I might well owe the man an apology and this seemed like a fine time. I didn't think he'd taken umbrage. I thought what I'd said was in precisely the spirit that was demanded by his comment to me.

But he was a guy I kinda admired for some of the stands he'd taken…so just in case, I sidled over to him, nodded in the direction of Jane Seymour and said, "Now, isn't this better than interviewing Dick Butkus in the shower room?"

Mr. Cosell laughed and said, "Anything is better than interviewing Dick Butkus in the shower room. Or outside it for that matter."

I apologized to him for my remark. He said it wasn't necessary. I said, "I was very impressed back there with what a fine job you did of acting just like Howard Cosell."

He gave out with a long sigh. "It's a lot of work being me," he said. "I never know if I'm supposed to live up to my reputation or down to it."

Just then, he was called away to tape an interview for the show. He shook my hand like a normal human being and departed…but every time I saw him after that on TV, I thought about that remark: "I never know if I'm supposed to live up to my reputation or down to it." I suspect anyone who gains a rep for being outrageous in some way has to grapple with the same quandary.

A little later, I tried without any success to strike up a conversation with Ms. Seymour. I didn't really have it in mind that I might get her phone number or ask her to dinner but I also wasn't not thinking of those things.

I do not recall what I said but she smiled at me — which is all I was realistically seeking — and in the most polite, charming, civilized manner told me that she wasn't the least bit interested in talking to me, let alone going out with me. I hadn't even broached the latter activity but I guess she could sense I didn't not have it on my mind.

A week later at a party, I struck up a conversation with a young lady named Brenda. I don't remember what I said to her either but the first thing out of my mouth was whatever I'd said to Jane Seymour…only in this case, it led to us both saying many other things and then going to dinner the following evening. It was a terrible date — no rapport, no laughs, no spark.

By the time the waiter brought the check, we both wanted to be home and in bed — not in the same home and certainly not in the same bed — so we called it off then and there in the restaurant. I couldn't help but muse that having Jane Seymour say no was a much more pleasurable experience than having Brenda say yes.

Getting back to Pepperdine: I had two other encounters with glamorous actresses. Larry Hilton-Jacobs from Kotter introduced me to Joanna Cameron, who had been starring as the super-heroine Isis on a Saturday morning TV series. We hung out together for a while, then got separated in the crowds before she could turn me down. If and when she had, I probably would have replied, "You know, you could learn something from Jane Seymour."

Then a few weeks after the event, a photo of me turned up in not The Enquirer but one of those other tabloids. Actually, it was a picture of Jaclyn Smith from Charlie's Angels, sitting on the ABC bench next to me. I was not identified but the caption, ignoring body language that screamed "No,", wondered if I might be the latest in a long (apparently) series of Jaclyn's boy friends. Alas, Jaclyn missed out on that wonderful opportunity by never saying one word to me.

And I think that's all I recall of the weekend, apart from what I mentioned in this earlier piece and this one. An interesting experience to say the least.

Photo Finished

Let's talk about all these women who claim Donald Trump grabbed them, propositioned them or kissed them without their permission — in other words, did the kind of things he bragged about doing on that Access Hollywood video. He insists he never met any of them…and you get the feeling that any day now, this guy's going to start swearing he never met Michael Flynn or Jared Kushner. I doubt many (if any) of Trump's most fervent supporters really believe he never met or groped any of the women but they'll say they do because he's their boy at the moment.

Depending on what source you listen to, there seem to be seventeen, eighteen, nineteen or twenty women. Politifact says seventeen and here, they run down the evidence that our current Oval Office occupant actually met each one of them. Their conclusion?

If someone appeared on The Apprentice, had their picture taken with Trump, interviewed him, or had a relative confirm their story, it seems likely that at the very least Trump had met them. By that yardstick, Trump verifiably knew or met eight of the 16 accusers. It's likely that all of the beauty pageant contestants also meet that standard, but we haven't seen pictures of them standing side-by-side with Trump. By no means can Trump claim to not know or have met all of the women who have talked about his sexual transgressions.

At the risk of siding with Donald Trump — which is becoming increasingly dangerous in this world — I'm going to take issue with one point in the above. I think he probably met and did just what he's accused of doing with each of them…and it wouldn't surprise me if there's a hundred-plus more other ladies with similar experiences. But having your photo taken with someone, especially in a public place, is proof of only having "met" them in only the most superficial sense.

Every celebrity I've ever known has their picture taken with countless fans and ultra-casual acquaintances. Heck, I'm about ten-zillionth as famous as Donald J. Trump was before he dove into the political arena and I have people I don't really know come up to me at comic book conventions and ask, "Can I get a picture?" In an era where almost everyone goes everywhere with a camera in their phone, it happens all the time. It also happens when people don't formally pose.

Picking one example out of hundreds I could cite: Back in the seventies, I was present for one of those Battle of the Network Stars shows and somewhere here, I have news photos that were taken at the time of me talking with or standing next to Telly Savalas and Sonny Bono and Dan "Grizzly Adams" Haggerty and several others with whom I had only the briefest contact.

There were pics I was in with O.J. Simpson and Bruce Jenner from back when it was pretty cool to have your picture with O.J. Simpson or Bruce Jenner. The National Enquirer even printed a photo of me sitting on the ABC bench next to Charlie's Angels star Jaclyn Smith and captioned it to suggest I might be a new beau.

None of those people really "met" me. Most never heard my name or if they did, had no reason to remember it ten minutes later. If I later accused one of them of a crime and he or she said they'd never met me, they would not be lying. They'd be wrong in a very technical, understandable sense but they would not be lying.

At that event, I was actually introduced to and spent a little time talking with Howard Cosell, who was one of the hosts. A year or two later, I was introduced to him at another function and he not only didn't remember me, he didn't remember even hosting that TV special. He could have passed a polygraph, I am sure. He was wrong but he was not lying.

This is not much of a defense of Donald Trump, especially since I suspect all his accusers are not only not lying but that they're recalling a bad experience that they'd forget if only they could. I just think that "Look, there's a photo of her with Donald Trump" is not by itself proof of anything except that the lady once had her photo taken with Donald Trump. And he does seem like the guy who not only wouldn't remember someone's name, he might not even bother to learn it in the first place.

Tuesday Morning

I spent yesterday (a) voice-directing The Garfield Show and (b) catching up on sleep I didn't get over the weekend working on the script. The session went well thanks to a superb cast: Frank Welker, Gregg Berger, Wally Wingert, Jason Marsden, Laraine Newman, Candi Milo and Corey Burton. Today, we have all those folks back plus Laura Summer, Jewel Shepard and the legendary Stan Freberg. As I am fond of saying, when you hire the best actors, a rhesus monkey could direct one of these things. Normal blog posting should resume shortly.

Many of you have noted the new headers on this page — not just one but several new drawings of me by a man of mystifying talents. His name is Sergio Aragonés and I'd hoped the new art would go quietly unnoticed for a time but no. (I love the folks who are writing me to ask if I noticed it had changed.) There are more drawings yet to come.

Also to come on this blog: In the next day or three, I hope to post a long piece about the situation by which Bob Kane is credited as the sole creator of Batman while his collaborator Bill Finger is not equally heralded on the strip or the movies or the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I shall mount the best defense I can of Mr. Kane and make a few points in his favor on this. But you'll still conclude, as I did, that it's awful that Finger's name is not there.

Also, I haven't forgotten that I promised more tales of working on Welcome Back, Kotter and witnessing, live and in person, a Battle of the Network Stars. And there's that long essay about the late Al Feldstein I said I'd get around to. And a few other things..

As usual, I will be doing more than a dozen panels at Comic-Con International this year down in lovely San Diego. There will be all the usual ones plus a few new things and I'll post my schedule here as soon as the convention is ready to release the total list.

By the way: Please don't write me about three things. One is getting into the convention. Another is helping you find lodging during the convention. And the third is suggesting programming, especially long after the schedule is locked, which it pretty much was a few weeks ago. You'd be amazed at the number of people who write or call me each year a week or less before the con to ask if some panel they want to do can be added. I don't program that stuff. There are people paid to do that and they have to do it way before the con.

I gotta get to the studio. Back later.

Mushroom Soup Monday

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I am about to submerge for the remainder of Mushroom Soup Monday and work on pressing assignments. As usual, I'll be back if something urgent happens.

My "to do" list for this week on newsfromme.com includes a round-up of some of the e-mail I've received about the O.J. Simpson case, some tales from The Battle of the Network Stars and another story or two from my days on Welcome Back, Kotter.

I may or may not write a piece I've been mulling about what it was that always worried me about the Iraq War. Briefly, it was that the people urging us to invade and involved in planning said invasion didn't seem to (a) comprehend the existing situation there involving the Sunnis, the Shi'ites and the Kurds and (b) didn't seem to think that mattered. I didn't understand it either but I wasn't committing American lives and dollars to the effort and promising to reconfigure how that country worked.

Nice to see William Kristol telling us what the U.S. should do about Iraq. Maybe the Sunday news shows can bring Dick Morris on again to explain how Mitt Romney is certain to win in a landslide.

One of these days, I may also write a piece about how Costco seems to be adopting the main business principle behind Trader Joe's. The way it works at Trader Joe's is that I go in and they track what I purchase and take home. And then via some means that I've been unable so far to determine, they find out if I like it or not and if I do, they stop carrying it in their stores. I'm not sure how they do this but they do this and now Costco apparently has the same surveillance equipment.

Okay, if you need me the rest of the day, I'll be hiding behind the soup can…

With a Rubber Hose…

The cable channel MeTV is rerunning episodes of the schoolroom sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, which was the first TV series on which I had a staff job. This was back in 1976, back when I was teamed with a talented gent named Dennis Palumbo. The one they ran last Friday night was the first one we worked on, though somehow our names didn't get into its credits.

It was the episode I wrote about here.  Groucho Marx came to the set to do a cameo guest shot for it but his health simply wasn't up to it. Instead, pictures were taken of Mr. Marx with the cast and he went home. He looked very sick and very sad, and I assume that's why to this day I've never seen one of those photos anywhere.

There are a couple of interesting stories about the episode which runs this evening, which was called "Horshack Vs. Carvelli." Don't worry. I won't be doing this about all of them.

Dennis and I were hired as story editors during a sort of general coup. The network and the show's star Gabe Kaplan were unhappy with the direction the show was taking. They felt there had been too much emphasis on jokes and silliness, not enough on story and character. That was pretty much the way the show's Executive Producer Jimmie Komack wanted it but no one else did. In a move echoed somewhat by recent news out of the Ukraine, Jimmie was elbowed to one side and a course-correction was instituted.

For what it's worth, I thought Gabe Kaplan was very smart and very right. Absolutely none of the changes he wanted to see come about had anything to do with how much attention or how many laughs he got on the series. As far as he was concerned, Mr. Kotter could become a mute extra on The John Travolta Show if that show was good.

The old producers and story editors were surely capable of changing the direction to what ABC and Gabe wanted but the way things sometimes work in television is that you change the tone by changing the staff. Most of them were ousted and Dennis and I were, I believe, the first newly-hired members of the creative team charged with taking the show back towards its original concept. At least, we were the first ones to report for work.

This particular episode was a transitional one. The outgoing producers had developed it with a freelance writer and he'd delivered a pretty good script…that is, according to the old standard. The producers who'd hired him had gotten what they wanted but those producers were producing no longer, and the script was exactly what the new regime didn't want. Dennis and I were charged with doing a full rewrite of the script to make it into what the folks now in charge wanted the show to be.

The story had to do with a boxing match in which Arnold Horshack, the wimpy/whiny member of Mr. Kotter's class, went up against a recurring character named Carvelli — a street tough from a rival school. Everyone expected Arnold to get flattened and in the final draft by the freelancer, there was a gimmicky twist and Arnold wound up winning. Among the many changes Dennis and I made was to dump the gimmicky twist and have Arnold lose…but then to be hailed as a hero just for having the guts to step into the ring.

As it was going into production, another new producer and a couple more writers were joining the staff and they pitched in on subsequent rewrites. On Kotter, every script was rewritten extensively throughout rehearsals and by the time this one was taped, nothing remained of the original writer's work except the notion of Horshack boxing Carvelli. Page One Rewrites, as they're called, happen on just about every sitcom from time to time — on some, every time — and are usually not a reflection on the skills of the original writer.

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During the rehearsal process, Dennis and I continued rewriting along with everyone else. At times, we were rewriting others' rewrites of our rewrites. One moment I will never forget occurred around 4 AM one morning as we were huddled in a dank, windowless office on the ABC lot, floundering about in what must have been about the ninth draft. One or both of us decided that the boxing match scene needed some preliminary business before the match commenced so we added in two things.

One was to have Mr. Woodman — the principal of the school, functioning here as referee — introduce a former student sitting ringside…Dino "Crazy" Delaney. "Crazy" had been mentioned in earlier episodes but had never been seen. We stuck him in there. George Tricker, one of the newly-hired writers on the show, wound up playing the wordless part. I believe he was cut out of syndication prints when they had to trim to make room for more commercials so he may not appear on MeTV.

Then I turned to Dennis and said, "You know what this scene needs? It needs cheerleaders."

Dennis looked at me through bleary eyes. "Cheerleaders?"

I said, "Yes, cheerleaders. People love cheerleaders. There has never been a motion picture or TV show that could not be improved by cheerleaders. If Gone With the Wind had had cheerleaders in it, it might have become a timeless classic."

Dennis stared at me for a long moment, then said — because at 4 AM, almost anything can sound like a good idea — "Okay, fine. Cheerleaders." I wrote in a description of four female students in cheerleader costumes doing a little routine at ringside before the match. They chanted — and it will take me exactly as long to type it here as it did to write it that night —

Horshack! Horshack! We're with you!
Rock him! Sock him! Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!

"Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!" was, of course, Horshack's catch-phrase on the show. Someone had stolen Joe E. Ross's old catch-phrase and added another "Ooh!" Just to make it different.

We finished the rewrite, sent it off to be retyped, copied and distributed, then went to our respective homes to crash. The next morning around 11 AM, I staggered into the studio. I did a lot of staggering while on Kotter and I've never had a drink in my life. On stage there — don't ask me how this was arranged so fast — were four young women in cheerleader costumes plus a choreographer. They were practicing the cheer.

It was kind of a stunning moment for me. Something I'd written seven hours earlier had somehow become a reality. It reminded me of when I was much younger and could occasionally master a real good magic trick. It was like, "Gee, how did I do that?"

Just then, the Associate Producer came up to me and said in a grumbling manner that between giving lines to four extras, hiring the choreographer and making the costumes, our little addition had cost the show about fifteen hundred dollars. I said, because I honestly didn't know how much trouble we were in, "Are you telling me we shouldn't have written that in?"

She didn't say yes. She didn't say no. But she did say, "I think the joke would have been just as funny with two girls."

One of those girls, by the way, was Kristine Greco, who I wrote about here. I had met her a few weeks before and we'd begun going out. It was because of the cheerleader bit that we decided to keep our friendship secret. She didn't want people to think she'd gotten a line on the show because of her relationship with one of the writers. I didn't want people to think I'd written it in just for her because…well, you can figure out why not. I hadn't even thought of who they'd get to play the cheerleaders because, you know, it was 4 AM.

Another one of the cheerleaders was Elaine Ballace, who I mentioned here and who I still occasionally see at autograph shows and Hollywood-type events.

A month or two later, I went with Gabe Kaplan to the taping of one of those Battle of the Network Stars athletic events. He was the captain of a team of stars from ABC shows, competing against the CBS team (captained by Telly Savalas) and an NBC team (helmed by Robert Conrad). They did them at Pepperdine University in Malibu and the bleachers were filled with students who had turned out to see the celebrities, especially Jaclyn Smith, get wet. I missed Jaclyn getting out of the pool but in the dressing room, I did see Hal Linden naked.

At one point, Gabe and I were walking by the stands and suddenly, about thirty young women leaped up and with a little bit of improvised terpsichore, chanted…

Kotter! Kotter! We're with you!
Rock him! Sock him! Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!

Gabe grinned and waved to them, then turned to me and asked, "Didn't you write that?"

What I said in response was a pretty dumb thing, even for me. I said, "Yeah…where'd they hear it?"

Gabe said, "Maybe they own television sets, you putz!"

Oh, yeah…

Getting back to the episode, I remember two other things that might interest someone. During our first rewrite, Dennis and I had decided to give Carvelli a sidekick. We specified that he be black and I'm pretty sure I was the one who decided to name him Murray. I used to name a lot of characters Murray back then. The casting director recommended a black actor for the part and he was hired and began rehearsing.

It took an hour or two but we all realized he was wrong for the part. He was a very large Murray — tall, wide and built like a Sumo. Carvelli was supposed to be the tough guy who was certain to pound Horshack into library paste…but standing next to this actor, Charlie Fleischer didn't look so menacing. The large black guy was replaced with a smaller black guy, an actor named Bob Harcum who turned out to be so funny that he was brought back to appear on the show several times. Since Dennis and I were not the credited writers of that episode, we did not receive the payments that go to a writer when a character he or she originates appears again.

Another memory. At the last minute, our producer rewrote a line of Gabe's at the end, at the part of the story where he's telling Arnold that though he lost the fight, he won a victory just by showing up. Mr. Kotter said, "As far as we're concerned, you're the gold medal kid with the heavyweight crown." That's a line from a song in West Side Story and it prompted a Defcon-2 Alert from the show's Standards and Practices supervisor.

TV shows don't really have such people now but back then, they were everywhere, interfering and destroying humor in a futile effort to achieve two goals. One was to stop the show and network from being sued. The other was to make sure nothing was said or shown that would spark protests and angry mail. The lady from Broadcast Standards insisted Gabe couldn't say the line because it would surely lead to legal action from…

Well, I don't know. Stephen Sondheim, maybe…or the producers of West Side Story. Perhaps the show would have to pay a music clearance fee and who knew how much that could be?

As I recall, this was not noticed or raised until the final taping and so after the audience was released, everyone stood around on the stage arguing, with the Standards Lady insisting an alternate line be written, taped and substituted. Gabe Kaplan, backed up by others, insisted that it was fine. The line was spoken, not sung. More arguing ensued.

The Standards Lady asked the producers to keep everyone there and in wardrobe for that scene while she went off and phoned someone higher-up at ABC Legal. Gabe Kaplan said, "You can call whoever you like but Mr. Kotter is not saying any other line and I'm going to go get out of these clothes," and he headed for his dressing room. That ended the taping for that evening and I never heard anyone mention any problem with the line again. No one sued. No fees were paid. Nothing.

This was my first experience with Broadcast Standards. As I would soon learn, though they seemed to fill an important need, there was a problem with the whole system. That problem was that the people charged with flagging content that might cause legal problems or public outrage were darn near Always Wrong. If they said Act One was fine but Act Two would spark lawsuits and protests, you could just about bet the family jewels that there would be no hassle over Act Two and if there was any trouble, it would be with Act One. I would accrue many more examples of this throughout my days in network television.

I don't remember much else about this episode and I've already gone on about it a lot longer than it deserves. I was not thrilled with a lot of the final product on that series but I thought this was one of the better ones. Anyway, it's on MeTV tonight, in case you have MeTV and want to catch it and haven't already missed it while reading this.

Oh, wait. I do have to tell you one other thing about it. Remember that outside writer whose work was so totally rewritten? Well, Dennis and I hadn't met him before we did that but we made a point of letting him know what had happened and that he hadn't failed. He had simply done a script for a show that always rewrote heavily and he'd done it adhering to guidelines that through no fault of his were no longer applicable. He absolutely understood.

Still, the experience got him to wondering if maybe he was in the wrong end of his profession. He'd always wanted to pursue a career as a stand-up comedian and writing for sitcoms, which he'd done briefly, began to feel like a mistake to him. Instead, he began to focus on performing.

About three years later, I went out to the Ice House, a popular club in Pasadena to see a friend of mine, Frank Welker, performing. To my surprise, Frank's opening act was that writer and he was very, very funny. His name was Garry Shandling. I believe the next time he wrote for a sitcom, his name was in the title. Wonder if anyone rewrote him then.

Today's Video Link

Speaking of odd acts that many people ripped off, a gentleman named Lou Goldstein made a very good living for a long time playing "Simon Says." He did it for years at Grossinger's, the famous Catskills resort, and developed an amazing repertoire of tricks and ways to entrap players. From the 'net, I gather he's still around but I haven't seen him anywhere for a long time.

For several years, he did the bit on those Battle of the Network Stars specials in the seventies and early eighties. I was present for one of the tapings (not the one in today's clip) and watched as he did about fifteen hilarious minutes which were edited for broadcast down to about six semi-funny minutes. The stars got very frustrated — one, even genuinely angry — as he bounced them out, but I think they all respected the skill and precision timing he brought to the routine. Here he is doing what he does/did best. Keep your eyes on Shatner and you might catch him cheating a little.

Trio Trouble

One of the best TV channels I get on my satellite dish is Trio, which describes itself as "the only pop culture and arts channel." It's actually the "weird stuff" channel with a schedule that includes reruns of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, old Letterman shows from when he was on NBC, music shows, documentaries about the entertainment industry and the occasional outright oddity. At the moment, they're rerunning old episodes of Battle of the Network Stars. I tend to watch it rather often.

DirecTV is now superimposing on Trio broadcasts an occasional message that says, "DirecTV's carriage agreement with Trio network expires on December 31st. If we cannot reach an acceptable agreement by December 31st, Trio will no longer be available to DirecTV subscribers." Trio has set up this webpage to urge people to write to DirecTV and say it matters to them if Trio is in the channel lineup.

This is probably about money and nothing else. Last time I heard, about half of Trio's viewers came to them via DirecTV, so losing that outlet might finish them off. DirecTV is figuring they can get better terms out of Trio. Trio is figuring DirecTV won't want to piss off subscribers by taking away something they already get. It's all a game of Chicken but I decided it wouldn't hurt to tell DirecTV I really want to keep seeing Trio on my satellite, so I filled out the form on the Trio site. You might want to do likewise.

Representative Democracy

You may have heard that a battle is raging between the Writers Guild of America and many of the agencies that represent their members. This article by Steven Zeitchik does a good job of explaining the issue but if you're too lazy to click, here's the one-line summary: A lot of agencies that are supposed to get jobs for their clients are less interested in doing that then they are in putting together deals where the agency assumes a producer's role and collects on the entire revenues of the show or movie.

There is no question that this goes on. It has as long as I've been in the field which is since around 1975 and it was not new then. It's one of those things that wasn't a big issue when only a few agencies were doing it but it's become so prevalent now that it's creating problems. I have no opinion on what can or should be done about it.

There are writers who have done very well being part of packages. Your agent represents your interests but also represents the project on which you work…most of the stars and/or producers and/or directors, etc. That can be fine up to a point, that point being when your interests diverge with those of the others involved in the venture. Your agent can't really fight for you against his other clients, some of whom make way more money for him than you do.

I haven't had an agent in something like fifteen or twenty years. My old one, who was terrific, got out of the business and I was working too steadily to get around to finding someone else. I've had a couple of good lawyers who could handle what I needed. Every now and then, I meet an agent and we talk about representation but I haven't found quite what I'm not-that-actively looking for.

About ten or twelve years ago, I was talking with a producer who was then talking to the Academy of Motion Pictures about producing the Oscar telecast. We got to discussing the show and how it might be improved and I guess he was impressed with some of my thoughts and also with my general knowledge of films. He said, "If I do the show — and it's possible but not probable I will — I'd like to have you aboard as one of the writers." I thought that might be nice.

A week or three later, someone else was announced as the producer and I got a call from the guy who was now not going to fill that position. He said, "Have your agent call them and tell them I was going to hire you." Well, I didn't have an agent but a few days later, I met with one who had called and asked me to come in and talk about him maybe representing me. (By the way, I always find this kind of meeting very enlightening. I've learned an awful lot about show business by talking with people who wanted to represent me but with whom I would never in a million years sign.)

The agent talked to me about his wonderful client list of not only writers but also directors and producers, and how he had a cooperative arrangement with a leading actors agency that repped some very big stars. The modus operandi he was touting was that I would bring him spec screenplays I'd written and also properties (like comic books) that I controlled and he would put together packages involving a director client of his, a producer client of his, stars from the actors' agency and perhaps other personnel. Then he would sell the whole project to a studio or network or someone with himself as an Executive Producer. I had seen this business model before many times.

I mentioned to him about how maybe I'd like to write on the Academy Awards and I told him what I just told you. Then I asked, "Could you make the call and maybe get me set up there?" And I swear to you, he replied —

"Why in the world would I do something like that?"

So there's a perfect example of why the W.G.A. and the agencies are feuding. How it will end, I have no idea.

Jack Carter, R.I.P.

Veteran comedian Jack Carter has died from respiratory failure at the age of 93. He had an amazing career and made many, many people laugh but I'm afraid I was not among those many, many people. There was something very abrasive and frantic about his performing that rubbed me the wrong way. He always seemed to me angry and not angry the way Don Rickles is funny when he's angry or Lewis Black is funny when he's angry.

I felt this before the first time I met him, which is when he was called in to do a voice on a cartoon special I wrote in 1982 called Bunnicula. It's on YouTube and it did great in the ratings…but I wasn't happy with the way the network insisted I depart from the book on which it was based. That's another story.

The plot concerns a serious dog and a high-strung cat and we initially cast an actor named Joe Silver as the dog and Howard Morris as the cat. At darn near the last minute, Mr. Silver had to go shoot an additional scene for a movie he was in and the producer was trying to think of someone with a similar deep voice. He turned on the TV and a game show was on with Jack Carter on it. One phone call to an agent later, Mr. Carter was booked.

It seemed like a good selection but as we learned the next morning at the recording studio, there were no two people in show business who hated one another more than Jack Carter and Howie Morris. I have no idea of the backstory to their feud but when Jack walked in and saw Howie, he turned magenta and yelled, "I'm not spending two minutes in a studio with that prick!" Howie fired back with something equally complimentary and the battle was on. Since they were both professionals, they did their jobs but every time one of them screwed up a line, the other would say, "Get it right, moron" or caustic words to that effect…and during breaks, they got even nastier.

I was not the director of that session. I had a more important job. I had to keep our two stars from killing each other.

Somehow, we got through the day. Later on, I got to know Howie better and discovered what a wonderful, sweet man he was when Jack Carter (or five or six other people) were not on the premises. I ran into Jack Carter several times and saw no nicer side of him for a long time.

One time though, he told me and some others a joke that went roughly like this…

This fellow who's never made a movie before announces to all his friends that he's about to produce one. He says, "It'll be great! We got Simon to do the screenplay!" His friends are all impressed. They say, "You got Neil Simon to do the screenplay?" He says, "Well, no…this is Charlie Simon. He's my gardener but he types really well. Oh — and I got Sondheim to do the music!" His friends gasp and say, "You got Stephen Sondheim to do the music?" He says, "No, Bruce Sondheim. He's a butcher but he likes to make up little tunes as he cuts meat. Oh — and we got Spielberg to direct!" The friends say, "You got Steven Spielberg?" He says, "No, Agnes Spielberg. She's a neighbor but she's done some interesting things with her camera. And finally, to star in the film, we got Goulet!" His friends say, "Really? You got Robert Goulet?" And he says, "Certainly!"

That's the joke — and of course, the premise of it was that Robert Goulet was famous in the business for never saying no to anything.

Less than a year later, I was in Las Vegas. A comedian I knew was opening for Robert Goulet at the Desert Inn and when I went backstage to see my friend, we joined a small group of folks who were in Goulet's dressing room. There, I heard Robert Goulet tell the exact same joke except that in his version, the punchline was, "Really? You got Jack Carter? And he says, "Certainly!"

I remember thinking, "It works either way."

Most of the time when I encountered Jack Carter though, he wasn't telling jokes. It always went like this: I'd say hello, remind him of my name and tell him we'd worked together on that Bunnicula cartoon. He'd ask me what I was doing now. I'd tell him about the show I was working on. He'd say, like he was genuinely pissed, "Why haven't you written a part for me on it?" Discussion was not possible on any other topic. If I wasn't going to get him hired for something, he had no use for me.

I ran into him a number of times after that and I'd look the other way and make like I didn't recognize him. I absolutely respected his career and how hard he obviously worked to cut himself away from a herd of thousands of comedians who never gained his fame or stature. I just didn't like him on or off screen.

Then one night around ten years ago, I was in the Porterhouse Bistro on Wilshire Boulevard — a great restaurant that is no longer there — and I found myself waiting for someone, standing alongside Jack Carter. He seemed cheerful and was joking with the hostess so I took a chance and said hello. He was charming and friendly and I don't know if old age had changed him or if our previous encounters had been atypical but it was a very pleasant encounter. I was very glad I gambled and spoke to him.

A few years later — in 2009 — Mr. Carter experienced an awful tragedy. He was standing in the parking lot of the Pantages Theater in Hollywood, talking with Toni Murray, the widow of comedian Jan Murray. A driver who somehow didn't see them backed her car into the two of them. Carter suffered severe injuries that kept him pretty much confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Ms. Murray's injuries were worse and ultimately fatal. A very sad story.

The last time I saw Jack Carter, it was a little over a year ago in a Costco. I told that story here.

Like I said, he had a great career and a lot of fans. We've lost so many comedians from his era that I'm saddened even at the passing of one I didn't particularly like.

Oddly enough, Jack Carter is in the video clip I'd planned on posting later tonight. As a matter of fact, he's pretty good in it. Check back here later for it.

From the E-Mailbag…

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David Shrensky writes…

A quick question for you: In telling a Welcome Back, Kotter story, you mentioned being present at one of the Battle of Network Stars tapings. Was that the one where Robert Conrad went nuts about an apparent violation that Kaplan made in a relay race? Any recollection of that and/or do you think it was staged a la today's "reality shows" to make for "good TV?" I watched a YouTube clip of it and Conrad seems out of control while Kaplan is collected and even gracious, despite some wild histrionics and Conrad's ridiculous tough-guy persona. (I won't even begin to speculate about Conrad's remark about being German and killing Telly Savalas and Kaplan.) Any insight into what was "real" and what was played up for the cameras?

I wasn't at that one, though I heard about it from Gabe. That was the first one and I was present for the second one where they had the same three team captains and billed it as a "rematch" or a "grudge match" or some sort of match. What I observed was that the contest took a certain amount of reality and built upon it in all directions. Robert Conrad, as captain of the NBC team, was indeed very fierce about winning.

The whole thing was something of a hoot for Gabe Kaplan, who headed the ABC team…and Telly Savalas, who captained the CBS team, did it with an attitude of "How soon can I get my check and leave?" But Conrad acted like if Grizzly Adams didn't win the kayak race for the NBC team, they would all have to do the only honorable thing and commit Seppuku with the plastic knives from the buffet.

The producers were constantly inventing on the fly because the stars, to a great extent, had the power to demand rule changes any time two out of three captains agreed. For instance, at the one for which I was present, there was originally a rule that in the "dunk tank" event, each team captain had to sit in the tank and potentially/probably get dunked in the water. Savalas and Kaplan both refused so that rule was rewritten on the spot.

There was another rule that said that the captains would decide which celebrities on their team competed in which events but that each celebrity had to participate in a certain number of them. The captains had not selected the members of their teams. The producers, I was told, had trouble getting stars to agree to participate so it pretty much came down to a question of "Who can we get?" Mr. Conrad felt he'd been stuck with a team containing too many "stiffs" (i.e., poor athletes).  No one else thought so but he did and he demanded the right to not play some of them at all.

Kaplan and Savalas refused to go along with this as a rule change…and Conrad basically said, "I don't care what the rules say" and he threatened to walk if anyone made an issue of it. Lynda Day George was on his team and he was refusing to assign her a single event despite the producers telling him he had to. I overheard one of them saying to him, "Hey, at least put her in the dunk tank. That doesn't take any skill and she'd look great wet." I think he finally agreed to let her throw a few balls in that event in exchange for some other rule change he wanted.  To a great extent, I think he was just being loud and argumentative because it did usually result in getting what he wanted.  He is not a stupid man.

That dunk tank was emblematic of the whole project. A star from one team sat on a perch in the tank. Stars from another team would hurl softballs at a target and if they hit it dead-on with enough force, the star on the perch was dropped into the water. It was not difficult to hit the target but not all hits resulted in dunking. Part of the appeal of the whole enterprise, everyone knew, was seeing female stars in clingy nylon athletic wear get wet…and also certain males who seemed smug and in need of dousing.

Insofar as determining points towards who would win the overall game, the event was honest…but the producers did have a secret switch they could use to dunk anyone. Insofar as I could tell, they did not use it to alter the outcome of the event but did use it to make sure that, for the sake of what you call "good TV," certain people did drop if someone hit the target.

So the contests were relatively honest but I'm not sure that the presentation was.  My memory is that in the one for which I was present, ABC had it won well before all the events were over but when it aired, it seemed closer.  Several events I know were not telecast and it seemed to me that a couple were rearranged.  The teams finished in the true order but if you watched it at home, I think you saw ABC win it on the last event instead of an hour or three earlier.

The Kaplan/Conrad race at the previous Battle was…well, first, let's show everyone what that was all about…

As I understand it, Conrad's upset was real, though he and the producers exaggerated it a bit for the show, and some arguments that first occurred off-camera may have been restaged for the cameras. I think Gabe said that the idea for the one-on-one relay race came from him because he was a pretty good runner and he knew he could beat Conrad…and also that Conrad couldn't refuse it without looking chicken. So yes, there was some reality there. And there's no question Conrad lost fair-and-square.

That was a fun weekend. If I get some time in the next day or three, I'll post some other things I recall about it, including an interesting encounter with Howard Cosell and a moment when I kinda/sorta tried to "pick up" one of the ladies on one of the teams and got one of the nicest, most civilized "get lost" responses a man has ever received.  Maybe I'll even tell you how I wound up in the National Enquirer or one of those tabloids.

Yes…More on Late Night

Joe Musich writes to ask for my thoughts and speculation on "…the look of the CBS Colbert show? What will happen to Worldwide Pants the entity? Will Worldwide have a bearing on the CBS Colbert show? Will Dave switch roles and pick up a political talk show at Comedy Central? He might be good at that. And what will become of Paul, Felicia, and the band?"

Well, what happens with Dave's production company Worldwide Pants will depend on what Dave decides he wants to do with the rest of his life. No one around him seems to think he's interested in another TV show of any kind but who knows? The man will be 68 next year when he hands Late Show off to Stephen Colbert.

That's about the age Johnny Carson was when he stepped down from The Tonight Show and pretty much disappeared from television. But that was not Carson's intention at the time he retired from that program. From all reports, he had nothing particular in mind he wanted to do in the entertainment field but figured something would present itself…and nothing did. Johnny made a few deals to develop specials but never followed through on them. (I was peripherally involved in one project where he was considering — or at least said he was considering — a producer role on a proposed revival of his old game show, Who Do You Trust. He decided against that as he decided against just about everything else he was offered.)

Will Dave go that route? Beats me. At this point, it may beat Dave, as well. But if he does find something he wants to do, Worldwide Pants may be the production entity. And I would imagine he will keep the company alive to manage its various assets. Carson Productions still exists to sell material from all those Tonight Shows and Dave owns a couple of decades of Late Shows and some other programming W.P. produced. I doubt though it will be involved in the new Late Show unless Worldwide Pants owns that title, in which case it might be a silent profit participant.

The idea probably will be for Colbert to do a show that will neither look nor feel like Letterman's. He'll have a new set, a new band, a new theme, a new announcer, etc. They may or may not do it from The Ed Sullivan Theater. (We may get a hint about that when Colbert visits Dave's show next Tuesday.) One factor to consider is that CBS will probably want Dave to do his last broadcast on a Friday then have Stephen debut the following Monday. It may not be possible to bring in a whole new set and do all necessary renovations to that theater over a weekend. On the other hand, it is a great facility and CBS will want to put something in there…

So I would expect Paul and Felicia and Alan Kalter and others to just go elsewhere. I can sure see someone pouncing on Paul Shaffer to head up a new show somewhere…maybe a hip music program.

And as I was writing that reply, I got this question from Jeff Madeira…

So what do you think will become of Craig Ferguson? Are his late night days numbered? Who might they get to replace him?

Given that CBS has not moved to quash rumors that Ferguson will be departing, I would imagine that replacing him is at least on the table over there. That would be a shame because I think he's enormously entertaining and clever…though I imagine he'd have little trouble finding other venues in which to be entertaining and clever. He does have a new game show soon to debut, which may have been a "tell" that he's known for some time he wasn't going to be busy with an 11:35 show and might not even have 12:35 much longer.

If they do keep him, that would be a partial answer to Joe's question above about Worldwide Pants. Worldwide Pants produces Ferguson's show now.

Who would replace Craig? Well, Chelsea Handler is out there actively campaigning for the job. She tweeted a photo of herself outside the CBS building and told all she was there for meetings. CBS issued a statement that said she was not there to discuss 12:35…so that suggests she will never be there to discuss 12:35. I doubt she is under consideration. My feeling is that if Ferguson is replaced — and it's still an IF, let's remember — it'll be by someone with some experience on TV but not that kind…like Craig Ferguson was. I also think CBS will be looking to counter the idea that they're only interested in white guys and they may also think it's time to experiment with something other than a show where one host sits behind a desk and interviews people with something to plug.

One thing to consider: Does Colbert's deal give him control and/or ownership of the show that follows him the way Letterman did? It's an interesting aspect to all this. Carson and Letterman had both — ownership for the obvious financial benefits of producing one's lead-out, control to make sure the show that followed didn't upstage them or compete for guests. Leno never wanted to own the show after his and from all reports, never interfered with what Conan and then Jimmy Fallon wanted to do as long as they didn't book the same guests right before he did. Colbert may at least have a heavy say in what follows him and may even own the time slot.

Lastly for now about this daypart, Lane Ingham writes…

I agree with you that the announcement of Colbert came so soon after Dave announced his retirement that it had to have been in the works for some time. But I wonder why CBS felt they had to announce it so quickly. Why not drag out the suspense for a few months?

This is just a guess but the battle for Dave's seat could have gotten ugly. When Mr. Carson announced his abdication, NBC already had a deal with Leno but that wasn't known at the time and they apparently talked about delaying the press release about Jay for a while.

The problem was that the instant Johnny set his departure date, a large part of show business exploded. Stars, including some pretty big people, were on the phone to their agents. A lot of top Hollywood deal-makers were determined to land the gig for their clients and the longer NBC let them think there was a shot at it, the more threats and pressures would be brought to the game. A gent who was involved in the midst of that from the NBC side told me it was difficult to make a deal with anyone about anything else while Johnny's job still seemed to be out there for the taking.

We think of the battle to replace Johnny as between Dave and Jay but there were a lot of other people who wanted to be Carson's successor and some of them had pretty strong, determined agents. I heard that one Very Big Movie Star called his agent about five minutes after Johnny announced his retirement and the V.B.M.S. said, "That job is mine! Lock it up for me or you're fired!" It was probably not in the network's interest to have that kind of thing go on for long. That's why I think Dave did not announce his decampment until Les Moonves was at least reasonably sure they could and would get Colbert…but they'll probably never admit that.

The Fifth

Fred Kaplan writes about the impact of The Beatles first appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show, which — hard for some of us to believe — happened fifty years ago today. I do not recall their appearance as feeling at the time like a seismic shift in our culture, an escape from the malaise of the Kennedy Assassination or anything that seemed to be lasting. At least at Emerson Junior High School, all it was was something that everyone was talking about the next day.

No one seemed to dislike them, not even any teachers. Apart from a few very loud girls, no one seemed to understand why we were all talking about them…but the point is we were talking about them. General consensus? They were four nice-looking chaps with a distinctive look who sang hummable, bouncy songs and made certain young ladies in Mr. Sullivan's audience shriek and cry. Even other girls of the kind shown getting hysterical in Ed's theater couldn't quite explain those ladies' reactions. Were they planted and paid to act like that? Or was it — more likely — that they were doing it because others were doing it? When you're that age, you often need no more reason to do anything than that others are doing it.

Oh — and why did no female performer ever foment the same crazed reactions from adolescent boys that Elvis or the Fab Four had triggered? Adolescent boys are, after all, supposed to have even more unstable hormones than adolescent girls. So that was an unanswerable question many asked.

In short: We at Emerson liked the four guys from Liverpool well enough. We just didn't see what all the fuss was about. Over the following months, the fuss seemed to have a life of its own. I thought a lot of kids my age — including, eventually, some males — became Beatles fans because adults were decrying and bemoaning them. That more than anything defined what they did as Our Music…and defending Our Music became, as it so often has, the battle we fought to establish Our Right to not become our parents or precisely what they wanted us to be.

In my world then, length of hair became a kind of beachhead for the boys — a line drawn in the sand. My friend Dan seemed to be growing his longer and longer just to stand his ground when his father or the boy's vice-principal at Emerson told him to go get a haircut. I don't know how many guys my age had arguments with their folks that included the phrases, "It's my hair" and "Not until you're 21, it isn't." That all really started, at least around me, when the Beatles did Ed's show.

It was a war I, personally, never had to wage. As I've written here, my father was most encouraging that I should not become like him. I did in many ways but in a key one — deciding what I was going to do with my life — I was free to do anything but follow in his footsteps. They led to a lifelong job in which he felt trapped and stifled. So I never felt any urge to grow my hair longer than my parents wanted or play music they hated. Actually, I don't think there was any music they hated but if there was, it wasn't the music of John, Paul, George, Ringo and My Generation.

Looking back, it's amazing how anyone argued over what they sang on Ed's show. It was so harmless and non-revolutionary. They even performed a tune from The Music Man. Eventually, The Boys would evolve as musicians and songwriters. They would do songs that most adults didn't "get" and a few which even seemed threatening or confrontational. That's why they became legendary. We wouldn't be talking about them today if all they did was things like "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Within months, you could get that kind of thing from The Dave Clark Five or Freddie and the Dreamers or hundreds of other groups.

I think what now impresses me more about that first show is Ed…and Ed Sullivan's appeal is now hard to understand. It's like why the hell did that guy have a prime-time TV show for 23 years? He was stiff and unfunny and always the least talented man on his stage.

There are two explanations for that. One is how he got his show in the first place and the other is his how he stayed on so long.

How he got his show in the first place is simple: He went on in June of '48. Back then, true professionals were in movies and on radio. There were a lot of guys on TV then who were as awkward and outta-place as Ed. He'd been a newspaper columnist at a time when that post conferred a lot of power. Performers didn't want to get on the wrong side of Ed or his competitor and sworn enemy, Walter Winchell. This gave columnists the power to get performers to perform.

Ed, who loved being on stage and hearing applause, used this position during World War II to organize shows for the U.S.O. and returning servicemen and to sell war bonds. He was good at recruiting acts but for reasons of self-promotion and ego, he never recruited a real Master of Ceremonies. He did it himself and he got away with it because as uncharming and unfunny as he was, it didn't matter. He was never more than a minute from bringing you someone who did belong on a stage.

In 1948, he carried that hosting over to a primitive TV show called The Toast of the Town. The premise was that Ed, as a columnist with his finger on the pulsebeat of the entertainment industry, would present the hottest acts then playing Manhattan. And even if he was stiffer than an overstarched shirt introducing them on the show, he was good at booking them on the show so his on-camera manner didn't matter much. It was a well-enough-booked show that he managed to stick around as television took off and the truly-talented folks from radio jumped in, displacing all the amateurish hosts and personalities.

Well, all but Ed.

He stayed on and he stayed on because he wanted so badly to be a TV star instead of just another newspaper columnist. Obviously, the money was a big reason but folks who knew Ed said that the real perk was being recognized in public. He loved it, they said. Absolutely loved it.

Each Sunday night, Ed did his show live from the theater in New York where Mr. Letterman now works. After the broadcast, Ed would do a little post-mortem, thanking most of his guests, discussing what went right or wrong with his staff, etc. Famously, there was the evening when he spent a half-hour or so screaming at Jackie Mason for kinda/sorta (but not really) giving the finger on camera. Rickie Layne, a ventriloquist who did Ed's show 87 thousand times with his puppet Velvel, told me that Ed would have to hurry through his post-show ritual because he had two things he had to do and dearly wanted to do.

One was to sign autographs at the stage door. There was always, even in the rain or snow, a crowd out there. It was vital to Ed to get out to them before they gave up and went home. Then he'd make his way to a waiting car that would take him to a post-show dinner with the biggest performer on that evening's show he could get to eat with him. Rickie said, "It wasn't always the biggest star on the show. Sometimes, that person had to rush off and catch a plane or perform somewhere else. But he always managed to find someone bigger than Velvel and me."

Ed and his guest would dine at a restaurant like Danny's Hideaway, which despite its name was a place celebrities went to be seen. Mr. Sullivan's night would not be complete unless he'd be dining there with someone like Tony Bennett and a fan would approach the table for autographs and treat them like stars of equal magnitude. Even better was when the approacher would ask Ed to sign his name and ignore Tony. Or Lena Horne or Alan King or whoever it was.

Toast of the Town became The Ed Sullivan Show and Studio 50, where he did the program, became The Ed Sullivan Theater. In-between those two upgrades of honor, there came a time when Ed's Sunday evening ratings supremacy was seriously challenged — by Steve Allen. Allen had been starring on the original Tonight Show on NBC and the network decided to put him on in prime-time. The premise was that Steve, as a performer who could so everything — sing, play the piano, tell jokes, even dance a little — could knock off Ed, the guy who could do none of those. So in 1956, the two men went head-to-head in a much publicized duel for 8 PM Sunday nights.

The smart money, of course, was on Steve…but it was Ed who emerged triumphant. Why? Probably because he wanted it more.

Allen was a guy who went from show to show all his life. When one Steve Allen Show was canceled, he knew there was another one in the offing…and indeed, there usually was. But for Ed, there was only one Ed Sullivan Show. He knew that once he lost that one, there would never be another…nor would there be much place for him in show business. Steve was fighting for the success of his current gig. Ed was fighting to stay on TV and to not go back to being a newspaper columnist that no one recognized on the street.

So he fought harder than anyone. He paid more for acts and/or used his power to get the performers he wanted to come in and do his show. From all reports, he was not above a little blackmail or threatening an agent: "You deliver this client of yours or I'll see that CBS never hires any of your people." That wouldn't be his opening move. He'd offer more money and a great showcase and even trade-offs: "You deliver this client and I'll book this other client of yours." But he was not reticent to use the threats or whatever else it took to get what he wanted…and he usually did.

Steve Allen was long since vanquished by the time The Beatles were the act Ed wanted to book but he went after them with the same determination. As you look back, it was so natural that his was the show that brought them to America. And he gave them such a big fanfare that he made it a major event. Give the guy credit for that.

People say there will never be another Beatles. I agree. But there will also never be another Sullivan. And February 9, 1964 would not have been a world-changing date without all five of them: John, Paul, George, Ringo and Ed. Some people called the disc jockey known as Murray the K "the fifth Beatle." Nonsense. The fifth Beatle was Edward Vincent Sullivan…and without him, I'm not sure we'd have had the other four.

Scrappy Days

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CHAPTER ONE

People ask me if I knew at the time I was contributing to the creation of a such a hated thing as Scrappy Doo. No, I didn't and no, I still don't. I am aware that there are some folks out there who, given the choice of seeing the execution of Osama bin Laden or Scrappy Doo, would opt for Scrappy and wonder why you even had to ask. Such people are, I believe, a fairly recent faction, and I don't think they're as widespread as their noise level would indicate. I recall Scrappy being wildly popular the first few years he was on the scene. He certainly bolstered Scooby's ratings and kept the series on a good 2-3 years longer than it would have lasted without him.

Scrappy debuted on the Scooby Doo program in 1979 as a "new element." Scooby had been on the air for some time by then and the narrow formula of the series had become repetitive to the point where ABC was considering cancellation. One of the very real concerns was whether the writers could come up with the thirteen requisite ghost premises to do another thirteen episodes. Let me tell you how you sold a script to the Scooby Doo series in those days.

You'd go to the producer or the story editor and say something like, "How about a ghost who's an aardvark and he's been haunting ant farms?"

The producer or story editor would consult a list of all the episodes produced to date, and there was about a 95% chance he'd look up from it and say, "Did it in Season Four" or whatever season it had been in. Sometimes, they'd say, "Did it in Seasons Two, Four, Five and I have one in the works right now, same idea." But if you lucked into something in the 5% category, you had an assignment…even if you didn't have a clue who the aardvark would be when he took off his mask or why he was haunting ant farms. Didn't matter. You or someone else could figure that stuff out later. You'd done the hard part.

In setting the schedule for that year, it had come down to a decision between renewing Scooby or picking up a new series — the pilot script for which I'd written — from another studio. Joe Barbera called me in and said, approximately, "If this doesn't work, Scooby's dead. We have this new character that I came up with…" And he showed me sketches of Scrappy Doo, explaining that this was Scooby's nephew. We would add him to the show and this would make things just "fresh" enough, while still keeping the winning Scooby formula intact, that ABC would order thirteen more episodes. And thirteen more for the season after that, and then there would be the season after that…

I was not then on staff at Hanna-Barbera. Quite a few writers were and most of them had taken a shot in the previous months at writing scenes or an entire episode to establish Scrappy. The folks at the network liked very little of what they'd done and were not about to green-light Scooby for another year; not without a finished teleplay that would show how Scrappy functioned, how he talked, where the comedy in the show would be with him around, etc. J.B. wanted me to write that episode. Even though it was competing with that other pilot I'd written, I said I'd do it. It was always very difficult to say no to Mr. Barbera.

The next thing that occurred was an unusually ugly negotiation between my agent and the gent in charge of Business Affairs for Hanna-Barbera. The latter took the position that this was not a pilot; that it was just another episode of Scooby Doo, so it should pay the same mediocre fee as all other episodes. My agent took the position that this was a pilot because (a) it was introducing a new character and something of a new format and (b) the network would or would not order episodes based on my script. I would also be going through several weeks of network meetings and extra rewrites, something that did not usually transpire on your average episode. Therefore, he concluded, it was a pilot and better pay was appropriate. The Biz Guy said no. My agent said, "In that case, Mark isn't doing it."

The Biz Guy said fine, Mark isn't doing it…or anything else for the studio, ever again. This was followed by the sound effect of the phone being slammed down. Then the Business Affairs guy called me at home and informed me that my days of writing for Hanna-Barbera were over. In fact, I should not bother trying to set foot in the studio again as I would be turned away. I pointed out to him that Scooby or no Scooby, I was still the editor of their comic book division. He said, "We'll see about that" and hung up.

Sure enough, I was banned from the studio for a good eighteen minutes, which is how long it was before Mr. Barbera phoned. He instructed me to — and I will clean up his language here a tad — "pay no attention to that damn idiot in Business Affairs." Before the sun set that evening, I had a deal to write the script that would introduce Scrappy Doo. The pay was sufficient (barely, of course) and there would be a small bonus if the show was picked up. The next day, I was to meet Mr. B. at the Villa Capri restaurant in Hollywood so we could brainstorm ideas over lunch.

COL329

Daws Butler
Part 3

by Mark Evanier

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 2/9/01
Comics Buyer's Guide

[And now we're in Part Three of our profile of the great voice actor, Daws Butler. When last we spoke, we were discussing how Daws became the star of every single early Hanna-Barbera TV production…]


Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera weren't the only ones inventing TV animation in the late fifties. Just a few blocks from their studio at Sunset and La Brea, producer Jay Ward was teaming with writer-actor-producer Bill Scott for much the same purpose. Daws was not a part of the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons they initially launched on Rocky and His Friends, but he was heard loud and clear on one of its supporting features.

Fractured Fairy Tales featured Daws in most of the male, non-narrator roles. The series was one of his favorites, due to the witty scripts (primarily by George Atkins) and the challenge of coming up with new voices for each episode…or, at least, he wanted to come up with new voices for each episode. "Jay was always insisting I use the same prince voice whenever there was any sort of royal character," Daws noted. "I'd always say, 'How about this one, instead?' and he'd say, 'No, no, give us the prince.' He also insisted June [Foray] use her Brooklyn voice for most of the princesses."

Later, when Rocky and His Friends morphed into The Bullwinkle Show, Fractured Fairy Tales was sometimes replaced by Aesop and Son, which consisted of fables instead of fairy tales. Daws continued to do most of the male voices, including that of Aesop's son. And still later, he was heard throughout Ward's George of the Jungle series, often as the villains encountered by George or Super Chicken, and as Clutcher in the Tom Slick segments. His most memorable role for the studio, however, was probably as the voice of Captain Crunch in dozens of commercials they produced for the breakfast cereal.

Working for Ward, Daws was a part of what has been often hailed as the best ensemble of voice actors ever assembled for television — Foray, Scott, Paul Frees, Hans Conried, William Conrad and only a few others. That he was in such distinguished company is not widely known since, feeling he was over-exposed from his Hanna-Barbera work, he declined screen credit on the Ward shows.


Daws remained the star voice in everything Hanna-Barbera did for daytime television, but he was reduced to a supporting player (or less) on their prime-time ventures. He initially voiced both Fred and Barney in the short demo film for a show called The Flagstones. It soon became the first nighttime animated series, The Flintstones…but without Daws in either lead.

Why he was replaced remains a bit of a mystery. Daws said that, what with his work for Walter Lantz, Jay Ward and the other H-B shows, he was overexposed at the time. More probable, it was that he was overexposed and typed as a voice for kids' cartoons. Though The Flintstones would soon become a kids' cartoon, it was initially slotted in a 9 PM time slot, sponsored by a cigarette company and targeted for an "adult" audience. The network and, more importantly, the sponsor did not want it to sound like the other shows Bill and Joe were producing.

Moreover, it's rumored that someone at Hanna-Barbera feared legal problems. Like the "Honeymousers" cartoons Daws had voiced for Warner Brothers, The Flintstones was inspired by — to put it nicely — the popular TV show, The Honeymooners. As directed, Daws did the same impressions of Jackie Gleason and Art Carney for the Flagstones pilot, with June Foray (his co-star in "The Honeymousers") providing the same Audrey Meadows impression as the wife.

It seems likely that Hanna-Barbera's lawyers felt that they'd be on less-shaky ground if they did not employ someone who was as well-established as a mimic of Gleason and Carney. (In a 1986 Playboy interview, Gleason said they he and his people had discussed suing over the resultant series but finally deciding not to bother.)

Daws and June were both replaced for the series, though it remains a mystery as to who immediately followed Daws in his roles. Jean Vander Pyl, who would wind up playing Wilma Flintstone, recalled that Hal Smith and Bill Thompson took over. Indeed, both actors can still be heard in bit parts in the first episode — the kind of small roles that were usually filled by having the lead actors "double." This would suggest that they were recorded in the starring roles and that those parts were later redubbed by the eventual stars, Alan Reed and Mel Blanc.

Joe Barbera, however, says that two other actors were recorded for as many as a half-dozen episodes before their voice tracks were dumped. He doesn't recall who they were but says they were not Smith or Thompson. Eventually, Daws's old co-stars, Reed and Blanc, were cast — and well-cast — as Fred and Barney. Daws wound up playing bit parts on The Flintstones, and filling in for several episodes as Barney when Blanc suffered a near-fatal auto accident.


Hanna-Barbera's second prime-time series, Top Cat, was also inspired by a popular live-action situation comedy…in this case, You'll Never Get Rich, on which Phil Silvers created the memorable character of Sgt. Ernest T. Bilko. Again, the show began with a Butler voice — much the same one he used for Hokey Wolf. And again, Daws was replaced because of lawsuit fears and/or because someone felt he'd make the show sound like a kids' cartoon.

Several different performers were recorded in the role before Hanna and Barbera settled on veteran actor Arnold Stang. Daws wound up playing only a few guest parts, including one episode where, playing a rival of Top Cat's, he employed the Hokey Wolf voice.

For the studio's third prime-time series, The Jetsons, the pattern was reversed: Daws replaced someone else. Veteran voice actress Lucille Bliss was initially cast to speak for the Jetsons' son Elroy but, after a few recordings, Daws was brought in to take over the role and redub the shows already recorded. He also played the building handyman, Henry, and the flamboyant businessman, Cogswell, who was in perpetual competition with George Jetson's employer, Spacely.

At first hearing, Elroy's high voice sounded like what he'd done for Augie Doggie or Aesop's Son. It even recalled Beany from the Time for Beany show…but it was none of these, as Daws would sometimes demonstrate by simulating a four-way conversation between the characters. There really was something different in each, not so much in pitch but in word emphasis, attitude and personality.

It was another favored role of his, if only because he found it therapeutic to make himself eight years old from time to time. Called back to do Elroy in the 1990 Jetsons movie and series, Daws — then age 72 — said, "I figure, as long as I can still sound like Elroy, I can't be that old."


It was around the time of the original Jetsons series that the long and fruitful relationship between Hanna-Barbera and Daws Butler began to unravel. Perhaps inevitably, the main concern was money. The studio had become huge and successful, and Daws had created the voices of most of its key characters.

Still, as was customary in the industry, he remained a freelance day player. Every time his services were required, his agent, Miles Auer, had to negotiate and, like any agent dealing with a burgeoning company, he was out to boost his client's compensation.

At the same time, Bill and Joe both were uneasy at the occasional criticism that all their cartoons sounded alike. There was also the concern of having one man responsible for so many of their characters. As Daws later put it, "They were worried that if I went on strike, they'd have to recast almost everything they were doing."

New characters as they came along were less of a problem. Daws was auditioned for most but, increasingly, lead roles went to others — especially if it seemed like he'd be demanding significantly above scale pay. The real battles came when Daws was needed to voice a Yogi Bear record or a Huckleberry Hound commercial.

Many of those negotiations left hurt feelings and resentments…and, once in a while, no deal was made and Yogi's voice wound up being imitated by Hal Smith or Allan Melvin. The results were never satisfactory.

Daws was heard only sporadically in Hanna-Barbera shows from the mid-sixties on. He was Peter Potamus in 1963 and the villainous Captain Skyhook on Space Kidettes in '66. In 1968, he was one of The Banana Splits and many of the contestants on Wacky Races. The year after, he supplied the voice of Lambsy for the "It's the Wolf" segments on Catanooga Cats. (It was pronounced with "wolf" broken into two syllables — most likely a Butler contribution.)

In 1971, he was asked to recycle the Snagglepuss voice for the title role of The Funky Phantom but, typically, he quietly evolved the character in a slightly-different direction. In 1978, when Hanna-Barbera brought forth its Saturday morn version of Popeye, Daws played J. Wellington Wimpy.

Apart from these roles, the only times he worked for Hanna-Barbera were when they brought back The Jetsons or revived Yogi, Huck, Quick Draw and all the rest, such as for Yogi's Gang (1973), Yogi's Space Race (1978), Laff-a-Lympics (1980) and Yogi's Treasure Hunt (1985). It was a shame he wasn't heard more…on their cartoons and other studios'. He really was the best.


I first met Daws Butler in the mid-seventies but, of course, I'd known him all my life and perhaps even longer. My mother says that she routinely watched Time For Beany when she was "with child," so perhaps his voice filtered in. As a kid, I loved Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Jay Ward cartoons, Warner Brothers cartoons and Stan Freberg records. Thus, when I was about ten, I came to the not-altogether-unwarranted conclusion that there was some Federal Law against doing something funny for kids without the participation of Daws Butler.

Many years later, when I was still ten but my I.D. claimed I was in my thirties, I had his voice on my voice mail doing Yogi and/or Huck. Friends who were around my age would call and hope I wasn't home, just so they could hear him. If they got me, they were disappointed and they'd ask me to hang up and let the machine get it when they called back.

That was after I'd gotten to know one of the dearest, sweetest people I have ever known…an opinion that is darn near unanimous among those who worked and/or studied with Daws. He was a man who loved talent, and not exclusively his own. He loved to see writers writing and actors acting and when you were with him, you just felt more like a writer or actor. He brought that out in everyone.

An extended family of young actors and would-be voice artists flocked to him, along with the occasional writer, like myself. We would sit for hours in the little workshop he maintained behind his Beverly Hills home, talking about acting and writing — or, sometimes, writing and acting. Daws could speak endlessly on those subjects and never run out of valuable things to say.

He also listened well…a skill I'm sure was crucial to his acting.

Those who had even the slightest amount of performing ability — i.e., everyone but me — took classes from him. Many have gone on to wildly successful careers, not only in voice work but in on-camera acting, as well. They will all tell you that studying with Daws was the most valuable experience of their careers. Some would go farther and say, "…of my career and of my life."

His techniques, his methods of teaching were all his own. He was not, like some acting tutors, passing on that which had been taught to him by others. I don't think he'd ever learned that way.

Rather, what you got from Daws was the sage experience of someone who'd been there, done that and — most importantly — understood precisely where he'd been and what he'd done. There are some wonderful actors who haven't the foggiest notion as to what they do or how they do it.

Daws was not that kind of actor. He was like Olivier, of whom it was said that he understood the reason for every inflection of every syllable he uttered. To add the slightest hint of sibilance to a word told us something about the character speaking it…said something about his background, his breeding, his intelligence. Daws, like Sir Laurence, always knew precisely why he was doing what he was doing. That made him the ideal tutor.

It isn't enough to say that he was loved by his students; I daresay any of them wouldn't hesitate to deck you on the spot if you said an unkind work about Daws. He was so giving, so willing to share his skills and time with anyone displaying the slightest dram of talent, that you couldn't help but love the guy.

We all did, anyway.

A heart attack took him from us in May of 1988 and I still find myself missing him terribly…not the voice, for that will be with us as long as his cartoons are rerun, which will be forever. But I miss being able to call him, to visit him, to listen as he dissected a piece of writing with the sharpest eye and ear of any actor I have known.

For a long time, I followed a little ritual most nights before turning in. I'd write 'til two or three in the morning…then I'd turn on the TV and start channel-hopping, primarily through the Turner stations. The idea was that I wouldn't go to bed until I had heard Daws. It usually did not take long.

There is still something very comforting about hearing him…something very human about his characters, be they bears or lions or hound dogs. I don't believe that's just because I knew the man who did them. I believe it's because he was extraordinarily human…and in all the right places.


This concludes our three-part look at the life and times of Daws Butler, but it's by no means the last word on him. In fact, I already have another story, which I think I'll save for a few weeks. Just to break things up a bit.

Click here to read the NEXT COLUMN

From the E-Mailbag…

Tammy Crotty (great name) writes to ask…

I know you're probably getting many emails asking this, but what do you think Jay Leno should do? I read your post suggesting NBC give Leno back The Tonight Show, but do you think Jay can possibly accept it and not be drawn and quartered by the critics? Won't he further ruin his already tarnished reputation? I'm an extremely huge fan of Jay's, and that's why I don't think he can stay at NBC and save face.

Jay's always been drawn and quartered by the critics. He's one of the most underestimated performers in the history of television. I mean, there are those who don't find him funny and that's never going to change. But I'm amazed how often I've heard that he would crash and burn and couldn't possibly attract a viewership. They said he'd never get The Tonight Show in the first place. Then when he did, they said the ratings would drop so much, NBC would dump him in 13 weeks. When that didn't happen and Letterman then went up against them, they said Jay'd be back working the Comedy Store full-time in six months. That time, it looked like they were right…but he only failed for a while, and only in the sense that Dave got higher numbers. Jay's ratings, even in second place, were never bad. I don't think he ever got below a 3.5 or so, whereas when Letterman's numbers started plunging, he dropped for a time to around 2.8.

Those are total viewer numbers. When Jay started beating Dave in total viewers, his critics said he'd never best Letterman in the younger demographic. Then he started beating Dave in the younger demographic and kept winning the time slot by every possible measure for something like thirteen years…including many periods when NBC's entire prime time schedule was in the dumpster. When you look at Leno's track record, it makes a wee bit more sense that the network was willing to gamble with him at 10 PM and doesn't want to let him go. (It, of course, makes less sense that they were willing to shove him aside for Conan…)

What should he do? Well, if he goes back on at 11:35, which is what some sources are saying is a done deal, he'd better do a damn better show than he did at 10:00. I even thought the bits he carried over and his monologue were weaker on the earlier show than they'd usually been on Tonight. I would hope the lesson of 10:00 would not just be that Jay doesn't work in that time slot but that viewers aren't all that wild about Jay Walking, The Battle of the Jay Walk All-Stars, all those faceless "correspondents," etc. The guy needs to reinvent his show again but I have the ominous hunch the opposite will happen. Someone will say, "Let's go back to what worked" and they'll attempt to restore the old show with a slightly new gloss.

Ultimately, if Jay can make The Tonight Show #1 again in its time slot, he'll be a hero and fewer people will say that Conan was horribly wronged by the switcheroo. My gut tells me that's not possible…but then I look at his track record and I wonder if my gut is just underestimating him, as so many other guts have.

If you'd like to read some nice press on Jay, read this. And I'll bet we're about to see Leno doing the "other talk show" circuit, admitting the 10 PM show was a mistake and saying how sorry he is that it worked out as it did for Conan. He may even be, for all I know. At least he knows what it's like to be shoved off The Tonight Show because a guy with lower ratings wanted it. It's happened to him twice now.